Whether you are a drummer or not you have probably seen somewhere in your travels a cracked drum cymbal. You may have even seen some spectacularly damaged cymbals still attached to kits. And, hey, you know, there's not wrong with that! Sometimes drummers can get some crazy exotic sounds out of these damaged cymbals. Let's face it, cymbals are not cheap, so most drummers are pretty hesitant to just throw them away when there may still be some way to salvage them. In fact, the writer of this blog entry once had a cracked hi-hat and had it cut down to create a splash cymbal. Honestly, it rarely gets used but it still looks cool and it did in fact make a hit or two in a studio recording. Validity enough.

So, let's talk fixing cracked cymbals. Short answer is you can't fix them. Once the integrity of a cymbal is compromised so is it's sound integrity. By far the most common solution is to drill a hole a little past where the crack visibly ends. Sounds good in theory but the issue is that the damage has already progressed beyond what can be visually seen and the developing flaws may not even be travelling in the direction of the drilled hole. The picture here shows where a hole was drilled in a cymbal to try and stop an impeding crack. As you can see the actual damage was way past the hole and only visibly appeared much later. Look carefully and you will see the crack is also beginning to split in a Y shape as it progresses towards the center of the cymbal.

Best solution, aim to purchase a new cymbal as soon as you see damage.

Temporary fixes. Some internet pages (or printed resources) give suggestions on how to temporarily fix a cracked cymbal. One option is to solder the crack which is definitely only temporary solution. Another concept, which we don't know if actually works or not but comes from a reliable source, involves filling the crack with epoxy resin and baking it at very high temperatures. Both of these solutions require a sequence of steps to achieve the best effect. If you have a cracked cymbal you might like to look into such solutions.

For the time being keep your 'effect' cymbal in place and get shopping!

Rockbadger Productions

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Rockbadger holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts - specializing in Digital Media and Music Composition. Moving from the independent arena Rockbadger now brings his talents and skills to you to help you get the most for your marketing, promotional and event needs.